November 16, 2006

It argues that “we need to look no further for the South’s rise: it is its very Indian-ness that has been its competitive advantage.” I dont buy that. In fact, I am linking to the article based only on Rediff’s credibility.

Yes, Rajeev is indeed anti-Muslim and ignorant. Not sure why would a popular portal like Rediff would publish such article without any thought. Press freedom is different and profiling a big community of people is certainly different.

This article is BS (Bull Sh**). This article is baseless. It looks like it is written by some high school dropout. The article is full of lies. This article has made Rediff News less credible in my eyes and for the author’s kind information the top 3 richest Indians are Guajarati.

My stuff is actually a comment on a news programme by CNN IBN. CNN IBN had aired a programme giving statistics about the development of north india vis a vis south india. I have not quoted any of the stats but commented on the attitude of the anchor.
I feel your readers will be interested in this.

Naveen,
Bang on regarding institutions. Every state with functioning institutions does pretty okay in India. Of course, functioning is a very relative term in India.

Sumeet,
That argument used to be true, but not since the advent of modern transportation and logistics networks. How else do you explain Switzerland? Or why Botswana, a land-locked country, is so much better off than any of the East African coastal nations, starting from Somalia down through to Kenya, Tanzania etc?

I wish Rajeev had handled this sensitive issue better. I guess, it is not a big surprise that India’s most underdeveloped states (the proverbial BiMaRU) are all located in the North. No, doubt Punjab, Gujarat, Haryana and to some extent even Maharashtra have fared much better, atleast as much as the Southern states, Indian North is cowed down by the pressure of the huge under-performing states.

Relatively speaking, South is much more tolerant to religious diversity (atleast there were no Bombay riots or Gujarat massacre or Babri Masjid demolition) and has a much better law and order situation than most parts of Indian North.

I don’t know what the readers here have found offensive of the author. Is it the arguments or the very verdict? If it is against the very verdict, then I believe it is plain chauvinism…South is no doubt better than most of North India in terms of infrastructure and development. Most of the high profile institutions of the likes of ISRO are headed by South Indians. The well-acclaimed Delhi metro was made possible by a South Indian. The most-popular President of independent India, a former scientist is a South Indian. All this can to an extent matter in the passing of the verdict.

While governments like TN can use the fact to point out that reservations over the past decades has only helped all this; my point is that reservations made most of the more educated students go and seek education outside the state-owned institutions; the higher competition for seats amongst these ‘forward students’ could also be a factor in their getting better educated and making the state more prosperous…

i have no doubt south indians states like kerala goa are much advanced thn my part of north india…hats off to thn…but i dont think tamil nadu, karnataka and andra pradesh are anywhere close so forget north south and say kerala..well nearly 100 perc education, more civilized and relaxed laid back life….goa well the same…other parts of south sorry i dont think soo…

Well, it would better one from a neutral ground to say a few words.. As a nation progress rapidly with uneven distribution, I am afraid what is said by many others will be reality.. Hardly, people outside india talking about other north india cities expect Mumbai (off course, it is known as capital business city of india), but they are more interested in talking about culture and progress in bangalore, chennai and hyerabad.. Even worse, most of NRIs as south indians and largely contributing to the nation..

Ajayyy, kumar-What do you mean by kerala and goa?? Kerala is lucky to come under southindia along with big weights karnataka, andhra and tamilnadu!! If kerala is so well developed, then why people from there go to tamilnadu to seek work. Kerala has got zero infrastructure and zero communal tolerance!! Tell your story cock and bull story to somebody from kashmir or something!!

Rajeev is indeed anti-Muslim, anti-china and ignorant. However, he is one of the most popular columnist in rediff (base on how many replies posted on his column). This show that his view-points on those issue are shared by a significant number of people in india. what did that tell you?

Eric,
It tells you that people like you are the ignorant ones, with your BS Political correctness. It goes without saying that without the the BIMARU states, India’s per capita income would go up significantly. On every index of development India’s rank would show a big jump. Yes the North needs to clean up its act. And this includes all the “poor” people, who have 10 kids,vote along caste rather than merit.Otherwise, I would not be surprised if calls for a “Dravida Nadu” start making rounds again in the next 10 years or so. And rajiv is anti-China and rightly so, China is actively trying to harm us by profilerating nukes to our enemies. Why is rajeev “ignorant”, can you point out where in his posts has he been ignorant (of course being un-PC is not ignorance, please point out factual ignorance in his posts). Otherwise please STFU

AS
Great insight! It also goes without saying that without muslism, Dalits in india, India’s per capita income would jump too. Better yet, Without counting the all the indians in india, the average income of Indians from all the other parts of the world will jump too. The problem with Rajiv is not how he point out the problems but how he blames the problem on other people’s faith.